Canadian synthpop pioneer Rational Youth will release its first original material in nearly two decades on Toronto-based Artoffact Records.

Toronto, Canada–

Rational Youth, one of Canada’s most famous synthpop exports, will release Future Past Tense, the project’s first new studio material since 1999.

Returning in 2016 as a duo (Tracy Howe and wife Gaenor), Rational Youth is set to release its first original material since 1999 as a beautiful 10″ vinyl thru Toronto’s Artoffact Records. The 10″ features five new tracks that harken back to the pioneering minimal synth style that made Rational Youth famous. The first track to leak, This Side of the Border, could have been a single off Cold War Night Life (Rational Youth’s YUL Recordsdebut) with its upbeat and clipping synths, dour lyrics, and hooky chorus. Other tracks, including the amazing Western Man, remind us that, at its core, Rational Youth was always about politics, something that should not surprise those who danced on the Berlin Wall. A cover of Psyche’s classicUnveiling the Secret closes out the release.

Formed in the early 80s by ex-Men Without Hats guitarist Tracy Howe and Bill Vorn, Rational Youth was later joined by Kevin Komoda (who went on to produce CBC’s Brave New Waves and co-founded Montreal-based label Derivative). Rational Youth went on to record arguably the greatest synthpop album Canada has ever seen with Cold War Night Life for YUL Records. A national tour and 20,000 copies later, the band broke up, a new band was formed, a new album was released, only to have the band break up again in 1986. Since then, Rational Youth has been revived several times with different line-ups, each time adding something wonderful to the mix, but always rooted in Howe’s knack for melody and his remarkable vocal style. The band has toured in Canada, Germany, Norway, and Sweden and has recently been invited to perform at the Tech Noir Festival in Reykjavik, Iceland.

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